Goss Sunday Web Press Technology Turns 20

April 18, 2013

Continuous innovations to exploit the original gapless-blanket technology breakthrough have driven printers in 27 countries to install more than 2,300 Goss Sunday web press printing units over the past two decades.

New Goss Sunday press models continue to set the standards for web offset productivity, efficiency and value, 20 years after the first Sunday press with gapless-blanket technology went into production.

DURHAM, NH—April 18, 2013—The biggest revolution in offset printing technology history began 20 years ago this month. That is when crews at a commercial printing company in the United States brought the first-ever Sunday web press with its gapless-blanket technology into commercial production.

Two decades and 2,300 Sunday press printing units later, the worldwide impact of the Goss technology on productivity, profitability and the overall competitiveness of printed products cannot be underestimated.

While prior offset innovations were incremental, the original Sunday 3000 press model instantly gave printers a way to nearly double output capacity while improving print quality and reducing paper waste. Several R&D breakthroughs enabled this substantial leap forward, but none were as vital as the gapless blanket that has come to define Sunday press technology.

Flat blankets on a conventional offset press are wrapped around the blanket cylinder, and the two ends are secured in a narrow channel, or gap, in the cylinder. Flexural vibration, occurring when opposing gaps meet, forces a trade-off between press speed, web width and print quality and puts limitations on all three.

Replacing the flat blankets with cylindrical Sunday press blankets that slide over the blanket cylinders from the sides eliminated this gap related vibration. This allowed the original Sunday 3000 press to print at up to 100,000 impressions per hour instead of the 75,000 impressions per hour that web printers were previously accustomed to. At the same time, the dynamic stability also allowed single circumference web widths to be extended from the traditional four magazine pages across the cylinder to six pages and eventually eight pages across the cylinder. Goss Sunday 4000 press models soon provided corresponding speed and width advantages in the double-circumference format.

Reduced vibration meant no “streaking” and better print quality, even at the higher speeds. Gapless blankets also reduced the non-print area, allowing shorter cut-offs and paper savings of up to 0.25″ (6.4 mm) with every cylinder revolution or more than 250 paper rolls per year in a typical commercial web printing operation.